Seven year itch.

I got into bed last evening pretty pleased with myself.

I was comfortably tired, but when I crawled into bed and found the most comforting position, sleep did not come. There was no anxiety, no stress. So where was my sleep?

I turned my gaze to the window that lets the moonlight in. Watching leaves make their shadows dance on my blinds always seems to bring on the daydreams. Next month, I will have known him for seven years. The seven year itch. This is the time when people are supposed to begin wearing the last of your nerves thin. This is the proposed "do or die" year for relationships. From Lifetimetv.com: "According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the median duration of couples who divorced between 1989 and 1990 was 7.2 years. Problems also pop up each time two people make the transition to a deeper level of intimacy, because fear and anxiety rankle our sense of autonomy and control," says John Friel, Ph.D.

A deeper level of intimacy. Fear. Anxiety. When I think about the past year's wild and painful rollercoaster ride, I realize through all of this - we've both been frustrated by our inability to really "see" each other. As he said to me angrily upon my arrival in town nearly two years ago, "you don't know what's behind door number three with me. You don't know the man inside the man. I'm in the mud and I feel like you're pushing me." It took us six years to fight. And literally days to watch our fantasy oasis crumble. He played games. I hid my head in the sand and pretended it would all go away. And it all blew away in an instant.

When I met him, I was 27. Living in my own bubble. Expressing myself only in the ways that would assure me my anonymity. I didn't tell anyone anything. I just told them what I figured they wanted to hear. Because I was painfully aware of just how little interest people had in what truly goes on in the recesses of others minds. I was content to live in secret. And emptiness felt like comfort, because I could rely on it through any experience.

He was my first taste of adulthood. Truly. My first taste of intimacy as an adult. By way of his own experiences and hardships, he was as shattered as I was. So we tried our damndest to heal each other. I had never known adoration, so I drowned myself in it. I gave myself permission to believe I was all the things he told me I was. And I bloomed. He had never known adoration either. So while I bathed in it, drunken and oblivious, he would dip a toe in on occasion and watch me with a melancholy smile curving the corners of his lips.

We stayed there, playing in those waters for six years. I could get him to join me sometimes, and those moments will remain with me until I take my last breath. I'd watch him head frantically back to shore when he realized what he had done...but I never thought he'd never come back in. I'd tread, and wait for his return.

Alot has happened in two years.

And so here we are at year seven. Both standing at the shore. We always come back here. These waters always remain here, waiting for us. No matter where we are in our respective lives, they call us back. I don't leap in anymore. I can't. I've been pulled under the current too many times. I'm afraid of drowning. I know his fear of loss now, because I've had to taste it. I heed his old warnings of always keeping a foot on solid ground. Still...the water laps at our toes, and whispers of memories of tender moments that beckon us back.

He studies my face the way he used to. But there is something different in his eyes. There is still reservation, but there is also the knowledge that nothing with anyone else, will ever feel like this. Still, he is careful not to ask for more than he can give. He sees beyond his own pain, and into mine. Ironically, I see the fearful boy in him that I looked beyond before. I peel back layers to him, and he watches to see if I will turn and run. He sees I will no longer give him what I'm not certain he's ready for. He wants. I want. Neither forgets.

Year seven can never be like the years before. It's evident. We both want to do things differently. Time will tell if we can.

I lay there cradled in moonlight, remembering my most favorite memories. The phone rings. I glance at the alarm clock blaring 11:30 back at me. I roll over to see his number on the caller id. I feel my heart warm in place of the butteflies that used to flutter. We're not children any longer.

"Hey."

"Hey kiddo. Did I wake you?" His voice is still magic to me. Warm and weathered, an audible five o'clock shadow upon his chiseled face. He's the living personification of masculinity to me. I close my eyes and I can smell him. No pretty colognes to cover the scent of musk, exertion and sweat. Call me odd, but a man's natural scent tells me a lot about him. You can keep a cologne's distraction. That does nothing for me.

I smile. "In between. You alright?"

"Yeah. Tired. Just closed the shop. Can you believe that? Anyway...*silence*  I just wanted to say hey. I didn't mean to wake you." I hear the disappointment at the far edges of his voice.

"I wasn't there yet. Tell me about your day."

We talked through his drive from the shop to his home, into the house and through a hasty dinner directly into yawns that repeated like a skipping record. "Alright babygirl. I'm gonna take a shower and get to bed, I open at 7. I'll talk to you tomorrow, alright?"

Alright.

I hang up, and roll over to my back. I wonder if our bodies are on speed-dial. Because it seems the moment I lay there with my daydreams, he appears. Almost as if to say, "Me too."

Maybe what's the seven year itch to some, will be the lucky seven for us. No matter how it goes, the difference is...

I'm ready.